The room goes through the late Ming Dynasty, and the back door leads to North America at the beginni

The red lady flipped through the account books.

"Currently, the industries wholly owned by our royal family mainly include the 'Anxianglai Makeup Company', 'Yirenfang Women's Clothing Company' and the Da'ei Royal Reclamation Company, as well as various shops and other small industries."

"Then there are joint ventures with the imperial court, mainly including Ruyang Glass Factory, Nanjing Glass Products Factory, and North American Precious Metal Mining Company..."

The red lady talked about the property of the Da'ei royal family one by one.

Here, the Damei Royal Reclamation Company is mainly responsible for managing the fields, orchards, vegetable gardens, forest farms, fish ponds and other industries owned by the royal family.

Whether it is in China or in North America, it is not occupied by the royal family.

In China, the royal family basically bought it from the court, and most of them were property that was not easy to sell.

As for the North American side, the land was allocated to Liu Sheng in successive divisions.

As Liu Sheng said at the beginning, public and private affairs should be clearly distinguished.

Although North American Reclamation Liu Sheng did not personally open up wasteland and cultivate the land, he provided the funds and tools for the initial reclamation, and Liu Sheng personally sent every immigrant there.

In this way, after the collective reclamation of a camp is completed, his part should naturally be included when dividing the fields.

Of course, royal lands accounted for a very small proportion in each camp, and they were previously managed by the Da'ei government in North America.

After the organizational structure of the Da'ei Imperial Household Office was improved, people from the reclamation company were sent to supervise it.

As for the joint venture industries with the imperial court, there are not many.

At present, it is mainly the glass industry and North American precious metal mining companies.

Among them, the royal family holds a slightly larger shareholding in the Nanjing Glass Products Factory, but its shareholding in the North American Precious Metal Mining Company is relatively small, only 20%.

This company specializes in searching for gold and silver and other precious metal deposits and mining them, and is extremely profitable.

Although the royal family does not account for a large proportion, it has also received millions of taels of silver from it this year.

This is because there are not many gold and silver mines currently being mined in North America. When a large-scale gold mine is discovered in San Francisco in the near future, the annual income will definitely be higher!

But the red lady didn't know this.

She only felt that the royal family's income of more than 8 million taels of silver this year was worth more than 11 million silver dollars.

First, more than 5 million yuan was spent to share the military expenses of the Guards, and more than 3 million yuan was spent to repair the damaged palaces in the Forbidden City in Nanjing and the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Although there are not many people in the royal family at present, it costs hundreds of thousands of yuan a year to feed and clothe them.

Finally, another million yuan was given to the guards, maids, and eunuchs as salaries, annual rewards, etc.

There are also gifts for some nobles and important ministers, which cost hundreds of thousands of yuan.

The total expenses amounted to more than 10 million yuan!

In other words, the royal family can only save more than one million yuan financially this year.

Even if there is no need to spend so much on building the palace next year, the daily maintenance and repairs are estimated to be hundreds of thousands of dollars less.

Based on this calculation, the royal family's financial surplus next year is estimated to be only more than 3 million yuan at most.

It sounds like a lot, but it may not be enough when you encounter emergencies that require a large amount of money.

How can this make the red lady not anxious?

What's more, she also wants to increase internal funds as soon as possible to reduce Liu Sheng's financial pressure...

"I'm thinking about what other profitable and suitable industries I can start to add more income to the royal family."

Hearing what the red lady said, Liu Sheng only felt warm in his heart.

Then he asked, "Do you have any promising industries?"

The red lady shook her head.

Liu Sheng's heart moved and he said: "Why don't we open another bicycle factory?"

"Bicycle factory?" The red lady was confused for a moment, "What is a bicycle? How is it different from a car?"

The red lady knew about the existence of cars in the tablet given by Liu Sheng, but she didn't know about bicycles.

Because in Liu Sheng's era, bicycles were almost eliminated and were rarely seen in daily life, and even less common in tablet videos.

Liu Sheng explained: "Bicycles are a simpler vehicle than cars. With our current technology in Dawei, although we cannot produce mature models, we can produce basic models without any problem."

There are two main problems in producing bicycles today.

One is the axle and chain, and the other is the tire.

As early as when Wang Hui was developing steam trains, the axles and chains were hand-made through the exquisite memory of Ming craftsmen.

Now, over the past year or so, a relatively mature production process has been developed that can carry out large-scale production.

As for tires, it is really difficult to solve without rubber.

But bicycles do not necessarily have rubber wheels.

Bamboo wheels, covered steel wheels, rubber-coated wheels, etc. are all available, but their performance is not as good as pneumatic tires.

In fact, Liu Sheng remembered that as early as the early Qing Dynasty, someone in China had developed the first generation bicycle.

This man's name is Huang Luzhuang, a native of Yangzhou.

He had extremely high talents in physics and engineering machinery manufacturing, and relied on self-study to invent many things that were unimaginable at the time.

There are dozens of inventions such as bicycles, flashlights (searchlights), automatic theaters (probably between revolving doors and movies), self-propelled fans, thermometers (an early model of thermometers), humidifiers, mechanical dogs, etc. .

It is a pity that the Qing Dynasty only inherited the dross of the Ming Dynasty and carried it forward. There was no stage for great inventors like Huang Luzhuang to shine.

Therefore, he could only be regarded as a local oddball at that time.

In later generations, his talent was valued and promoted by people, and he became famous. He was even called Edison in the early Qing Dynasty by Westerners.

After Liu Sheng remembered this person, he asked Xiu Yiwei to search for him, but he couldn't find him. He was probably not born yet.

Although Huang Luzhuang was not born, Liu Sheng knew how to make mature bicycles. It was still easy to open a bicycle factory.

After the establishment of this factory, in addition to manufacturing bicycles, it can also manufacture non-motorized vehicles such as human-powered rickshaws (rickshaws) and four-wheel carriages.

When Liu Sheng explained about bicycles, human-pulled carts, and four-wheeled carriages, the red lady's eyes lit up.

"If this factory is opened, business will definitely be easy and we can make a lot of money!"

Liu Sheng smiled and said, "Then I'll leave this matter to you."

"it is good."

Liu Sheng knew that the red lady was actually an active person.

Only because she became a queen and had to take care of the harem, she rarely went out.

He might as well find more things for the Red Lady to do outside the palace, so that she could move more.

But then he reminded, "When you are in charge of the Internal Affairs Department, the important thing is to select and employ people. As long as you select the people and leave the work to them, you don't have to do everything yourself."

"Ok, I know."

The red lady smiled and nodded, with two small dimples showing on her pretty fair and rosy face.

Immediately, the red lady remembered something more important.

"Tuanzi will be five years old next year, it's time for enlightenment."

While speaking, the red lady glanced at Liu Rui, who was taking his sister to read comic books.

Liu Rui was born in December of the 1641th year of Chongzhen (), and was actually just over three years old.

But according to the way people calculated age at this time, it was indeed five years old (virtual age) after the new year.